


Aunt Defender

by demoncandy



Category: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: A Well Deserved Set Down, Awesome Aunts, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:35:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23765464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demoncandy/pseuds/demoncandy
Summary: Aunt Phillips eavesdrops on Lady Catherine and Elizabeth in that prettyish bit of wilderness at Longbourn.
Relationships: Elizabeth Bennet/Fitzwilliam Darcy
Comments: 10
Kudos: 153





	Aunt Defender

**Author's Note:**

> This was previously posted at "A Happy Assembly" in 2017(?) - I am reposting it here in the interest of reducing the tedium of the present lockdown.
> 
> I had only my almost-final-version to hand and have checked it over for clarity, misspellings, and typos. It may, therefore, differ by a word here or there from AHA, and if I have missed anything, please let me know.

Mrs Phillips had no children of her own and as a consequence, expended her maternal longings upon her nieces and nephews. As she lived in Meryton, she was understandably closer to the five Bennet sisters than their four Gardiner cousins. She always looked forward to their visits and frequently called on the ladies of Longbourn in return.

On one fine Saturday, the first in October, she was on her way to make such a visit when she was passed in the lane by one of the most enormous carriages she had ever seen in this quiet corner of Hertfordshire. When she saw it turn into the very same drive that was her destination, she excitedly hastened her steps, eager to for news of this most unexpected happening.

A little way down the drive, an unfamiliar raised voice could be heard emanating from the copse by the lawn and as Mrs Phillips was not the sort to have any scruples in such a matter, she immediately diverted to the shrubbery that separated it from the drive in order to discover as much as she could. Her astonishment at what she heard was quite beyond all her expectations. The stranger was speaking of an alliance between Lizzy and Mr Darcy! And Lizzy was not denying it! Such was her shock that she stood, concealed from her niece and the visitor, quite unable to say a word for several minutes put together.

As the shock receded, she began to perceive the meaning of what was being said and when she comprehended the insults being flung at her beloved niece and the depth of rudeness on display, astonishment gave way to indignation that soon swelled into outrage. “How dare you?” she screeched, plunged forward through the bushes to sweep dear Lizzy into a fast embrace before shaking her fist at the female in front of her. “To say such things to a virtuous young lady, one of the jewels of the county! You, madam, are despicable!”

Lady Catherine stood momentarily dumb from surprise at having her tete-a-tete with Miss Elizabeth Bennet thus interrupted and she gaped at the intruder in a quite unladylike fashion. “Just who -” she began in a tone barely less outraged than the one she had been addressed with.

Mrs Phillips did not permit her target to recover and overrode Lady Catherine attempt to speak with even shriller screeching than before. “Such rudeness I have never before heard of, even at the hands of Mr Darcy, much less have I been a witness to! Arts and allurements indeed, such disgusting nonsense, ‘tis nothing but outright slander and I will not have it! Accosting a young lady in her own home! Such rudeness! Such insults! It is not to be borne!” And with that, she snatched her basket from the ground where she had dropped it and swung it wildly towards Lady Catherine, shooing her in the vague direction of the house as if she was a recalcitrant goose.

Elizabeth could not move. Her intended answer to her accuser languished unspoken as she knew not if she should speak, attempt to preserve Lady Catherine’s little remaining dignity or give in to the hysterical laughter bubbling up at the extraordinary sight before her.

Some trace of her oft-neglected sense of self-preservation had Lady Catherine moving before basket actually connected and in the face of such antics, she found herself retreating even as she blustered about her rank and her demand that this wild creature cease her behaviour at once.

She did not stop. Continuing to denounce Lady Catherine’s words, manners, person and presumption, Mrs Phillips chased the offender all the way out of the copse, across the lawn and to the door of her carriage. Seeing that Lady Catherine’s attendant footman hastily handed her in and her driver wasted not an instant in seeing to their escape from what appeared to be a madwoman, Mrs Phillips stood beneath Longbourn’s porch and dusted her hands in satisfaction before anxiously crying for Lizzy to stop dawdling and come into the parlour at once.

* * *

As might be expected, the account of these events that Mrs Phillips gave to her sister was quite incoherent but somehow, Mrs Bennet grasped a kernel of truth: that Mr Darcy was interested in her Lizzy. Therefore, when that gentleman put in an appearance three days later, he was greeted with excessive solicitude and, as soon as Mrs Bennet could contrive it, a private interview with her second daughter.

In stark contrast to the previous occasion when Mrs Bennet had abandoned Elizabeth to the attentions of a suitor, everyone was ecstatic at the outcome. Mr Bennet had no hesitation in granting his consent as he had already been apprised of her latest opinion of the gentleman. The Bennets were declared the luckiest family in Hertfordshire and Longbourn’s church was overflowing with well-wishers on that day that Jane and Elizabeth both married for the deepest of love.

For his part, after hearing of Mrs Phillips’ passionate defence of his beloved, Mr Darcy willingly tolerated all her vulgarity, seeing beneath it to the generous and loving aunt she was.

Lady Catherine, however, was never again seen in Meryton. To those few who knew she had gone there, she declared its inhabitants dangerously mad but given the humiliation that overcame her at the memory of her treatment by Mrs Phillips, she spoke of it as little as possible.


End file.
